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Bio (Brian White)

Brian White

Position

School

Summary

Dr. Brian White is the program head for the Master of Arts in Tourism Management program and was recently the director of the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management. His teaching specialties include heritage and cultural tourism, ecotourism, and destination development. He has published two open source community and cultural tourism guides, and has developed educational partnership programs in India and China. His consulting work in a variety of countries has included tourism and hospitality curriculum development, community tourism development, cultural and arts-based tourism development planning, and First Nations tourism planning. White is a passionate horticulturalist and naturalist, and maintains a large garden at his home in East Sooke. He is a member of the BC Garden Tourism Coalition, representing Royal Roads University.

Experience

Prior to Royal Roads, White was senior faculty member and co-ordinator for Capilano University’s Bachelor of Tourism Management, where he founded the Outdoor Recreation Management department in 1972 and the Tourism Management department in 1986. He has taught at the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University and the University of Brighton. As the senior human resource policy advisor for the World Travel and Tourism Council from 1997 to 2001, White developed tourism labour force policy. In the mid-1990s, he wrote the BC Tourism Learning System, and subsequently developed the Bachelor of Tourism Management Degree for British Columbia. He chaired the development process for Lynn Headwaters Regional Park and for the Seymour Conservation Area in the 1980s and ’90s, while serving as the chair of the BC Outdoor Recreation Council.

Credentials

White holds a PhD and an Master of Arts in Human Geography from Simon Fraser University. White was honoured in November 2004 as the Canadian Tourism industry’s ‘Educator of the Year’ at the annual Pinnacle Awards, hosted by Hotelier magazine. White was awarded the BC Tourism Industry’s 2009 William Van Horne Visionary Award for leadership in educational programming and commitment to innovative teaching.